ain been a
hundred times as powerful on land as the United States, she still could
not have defended Cuba. Were Germany to secure valuable colonies, she
could not be sure of their retention against England (which lies on
Germany's lines of communication), so long as the British possessed an
overwhelming naval supremacy. It was therefore natural, and indeed
inevitable, that, sooner or later, German colonial ambitions should
find expression in a naval expansion, which, whatever the intentions of
its promoters, was potentially a menace to the British Empire and even
to the very {115} existence of England. The desire for imperialistic
expansion thus led, in the absence of any formula of reconciliation
upon a higher plane, to an irrepressible conflict between England and
Germany, in short, to a world war.

Herein lay and still lies the peril of imperialism, the danger that for
fifty years to come Europe, and perhaps America also, will be again and
again embroiled in wars immeasurably more destructive than were the
long colonial wars of the eighteenth century. The present world war
does not automatically end the imperialistic struggle. There is China
to consider, there is the independence of Latin America, to say nothing
of colonies securely held for the time being by one or another of the
European powers. The allies, if successful in this war, will not
necessarily remain allies. The ambitions of England, of Russia, of
Japan, not to speak of France, Germany, Italy and perhaps the United
States, may come into conflict. Nor upon the signing of a treaty of
peace will the forces making for imperialism become extinct. In the
future, as in the past, a nationalistic competition for colonies will
carry with it the seeds of war.

[1] The _Saturday Review_, Volume LXXXIV, Sept. 11, 1897.

[2] Our exports to Canada in that year amounted to $410,786,000; those
of the United Kingdom, $132,071,000. Our imports from Canada were
$176,948,000; the imports of the United Kingdom, $222,322,000 (Canadian
figures). Statesman's Year Book, 1915, p. 285.

[3] Jamaican imports (1913-14). From the U. S., L1,326,723; from the
U. K., 1,088,309. Exports: to the U. S., L1,396,086; to the U. K.,
L424,491 (Jamaican figures). Statesman's Year Book, 1915, p. 327.

[4] Naturally our proportion of the trade would be still greater if
Canada and Jamaica were within the American customs union.

[5] Statesman's Year Book, 1915, p. 149.

[6]